My Alma Mater recognizes my dream and passion

It gives me immense pleasure to tell you that my alma mater, ‘VIT University’ bestowed me with their Special Chancellor’s award for distinguished alumni who work towards growth of the university and the alumni association. This award gives me immense pride as I chose to follow my dream and passion and my alma mater recognized this dream of mine.


As you all know, I left a comfortable corporate career to follow my dream to travel, click pictures and explore different parts of our beautiful planet. And while doing so, I have gone from a pure play traveler to a freelancer to an entrepreneur, while consistently being on the move. And all this in the space of travel. All I wanted was to make ‘travel my career’ and so far it looks like I am on the right path and this award from my university bears testament to my belief and dream.


This award was given to me last Sunday at VIT university campus on the occasion of Republic day and our annual alumni day.I received this award from our beloved Chancellor, Dr. G Vishwanathan, who has been instrumental in the growth of VIT and Shri N, Murali, Co-Chairman of ‘The Hindu’.

And what made it even more special was the fact that I shared the dais with other award winners who were entrepreneurs, investors, successful corporate heads, specialists in academics, a film actress and an Indian Army Lieutenant Colonel. I was simply humbled to be in their company and I really would like to thank my university for allowing me to sit in the same row as them. Those moments were really special to me.

What I realized through this award is that it is not stupid to dream? The chancellor of VIT university dreamt of a successful educational institution 25 years back. From a simple hut to a world famous university, the journey of the chancellor and the university simply amazes one and all. I graduated from here in 2003 and it has grown so much in the last 11 years that I can’t believe that I studied in this very institution for 4 years. In fact, I was so astounded by its growth that I cheekily mentioned in my speech that there will come a day when the Vellore and Chennai campuses will join together.


What was once a desert is now a green oasis. What was once a small, but education friendly campus is today one of the top technical universities of the country and it gives stiff competition to some of the well entrenched names. If this place can dream, I am sure each one of us can dream and that is how I chose to dream.


Thank you VIT University! Thank you VIT Alumni Association! Thank you Chancellor! You have given me the belief that I should continue to dream and work hard towards fulfilling my dream. A big thank you to each one of you who have supported me reach so far.

Courtesy: The pictures in this post is courtesy of VIT University and VITAA.

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Wedding engagement of a kannadiga brahmin family

My close kannadiga brahmin buddy from college (Vellore Institute of Technology/VIT University), Giri Venkataramanan got engaged on a Sunday evening to a pretty Kannadiga brahmin girl. The location was Hotel Residency on G.N.Chetty Road in T.Nagar, Chennai.


This was the first Kannadiga brahmin wedding engagement that I had ever attended. Amit Kishore and I were present to view the traditional ceremony, which includes signing of names of bride and groom and their wedding date by their respective parents in a  holy log book (for lack of a better word). What followed next was a string of traditional rituals that included people from both sides of the family and dress changing events.

This was only a small gathering comprising mainly of immediate family members and close friends. Amit and I kept ourselves occupied with our roles of a videographer and a photographer respectively, which was apart from making Giri (the groom) smile :-). Once the traditions were complete and the dinner room was thrown open, both of us donned our foodie caps and set out to explore the food, which consisted of fruit salad, tossed up sweet corn soup, cabbage salad, spicy pineapple salad, papads, butter roti, naan, Paneer Butter Masala, Dal Makhani, Roasted Potatoes (urulai roast), Malai Kofta, Yennai Kathirikka (Oily Brinjal/Egg plant), Curd rice, Bisi Bele bath, pickles, gulab jamun and ice cream. After a detailed sample of the dinner menu, we came to the conclusion that dinner was truly delicious and paid our compliments to the chef. Post dinner, we chatted with Giri and his bride for a while before congratulating the group and taking our leave.


Net-net, a good-looking couple, a warm gathering, well organized and decorated event with delicious food!!!

To view the complete set of engagement photos, click the photo album below.

Giri's Engagement, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India

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